Commissioning Decisions in Local Authorities

What Are You Tolerating as a Commissioner That Needs to Stop

Because what we tolerate quietly shapes outcomes loudly. Commissioners are rarely short of responsibility, but they are often short of...

By Innovating Minds

From Firefighting to Prevention: How to Commission So Practitioners Can Actually Help Families

How to Commission So Practitioners Can Actually Help Families

Every local authority leader I speak to wants the same thing:A system that stops firefighting and starts preventing harm.

By Asha Patel

58% of children who died from knife injuries had experienced domestic abuse at home, yet none received specialist, child focused domestic abuse support.

Why trauma informed early help is essential to reducing knife crime

There are moments when evidence lands with such clarity that it becomes impossible to “unsee”. New national findings by Dr Tom Roberts and...

By Asha Patel

Children’s Early Help Isn’t a Service. It’s a System Behaviour. Here’s How to Commission for It

Children’s Early Help Isn’t a Service. It’s a System Behaviour

There is no term more widely used, and more widely misunderstood, in local authority children’s services than early help. Every strategy...

By Asha Patel

Commissioning Models Are Turning Expensive Resource into Sign Posters

Every local authority has one resource that dwarfs every other line in the budget: Your workforce. Not your providers.Not your commissioned...

By Asha Patel

Why “We’ve Already Got a Provider” Isn’t a Commissioning Strategy

Why “We’ve Already Got a Provider” Isn’t a Commissioning Strategy

There is a sentence I hear in almost every local authority I work with: “We’ve already got a provider for that.”

By Asha Patel